


After The End

by flipflop_diva



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Best Friends, Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, References to canon deaths, Sharing a Bed, The Golden Trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26317081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: When the war is done, that's when true friends are needed most.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45
Collections: Friendship Flash Fall 2020





	After The End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannelore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/gifts).



She dried the wet handkerchief with a whisper of words and a wave of her wand and then handed it back to Ron. He took it from her, sniffled one last time, and blew his nose. 

He looked a mess. Red eyes, tear-streaked cheeks. She couldn’t begin to imagine how he felt. His loss was far more powerful than hers, and she was just barely holding on. She felt like she was empty, but what was left was a weird combination of intense aching mixed with numbness.

She had always presumed the end of a war would be filled with celebrations and victory parties, people singing and dancing and cheering through the night. But this was nothing like that. This was tears and sorrow and people bunched together in small groups, desperate to hang on to someone else.

Of course, there were a few people celebrating — she had heard occasional happy voices and laughter off and on all night long, but she wasn’t one of them. She felt like she wouldn’t be able to summon an ounce of happiness even if her life depended on it.

Tonks. 

Remus. 

Fred.

Their faces — in life and, now, in death — kept flashing through her mind. All three of them gone, all three of them taken way too soon.

She couldn’t even bear to look at the rows of the dead now filling the Great Hall. It was too much heartbreak to deal with at once.

But there was something they needed to do, her and Ron. Someone else who they needed to tend to, if they could.

She looked over at Ron to make sure he wasn’t still crying, then she took his hand in hers. 

“We have somewhere we need to be,” she said softly.

He squeezed her hand and nodded, understanding exactly what she was saying. “Yes, we do.”

\--

They found Harry sitting on what used to be his bed in Gryffindor Tower, staring out toward the window. Outside, chunks of rubble lay across the lawn. Shadowy figures scurried back and forth, tending to the dead.

They sat down on either side of him, leaning their heads on his shoulders.

“You don’t have to be here,” he said. But he didn’t try to force them away.

“There isn’t anywhere else we want to be,” Hermione answered.

“Surely you …” he started, but Ron interrupted him.

“Nowhere else,” Ron said, in a firm voice, and that settled the matter.

They pushed the bed that used to be Harry’s and the bed that used to be Ron’s together, letting Hermione magik them into one gigantic bed before climbing on top of it and curling up together, arms wrapped around each other.

They were exhausted and the faint light of dawn was just beginning to break outside the window, but they didn’t sleep, not yet anyway. They just lay together, holding on to each other like they would never get another chance.

“Isn’t it supposed to feel better than this?” Harry asked at one point. “Defeating Voldemort?”

“I feel like I’m supposed to be happy,” Ron said. “But I’m not.”

“I feel like I’m supposed to know what we do after this,” Hermione said. “But I have no idea.”

“You have no idea?” Harry said. “If you don’t, then where does that leave Ron and me?”

Their small laughs were the first joyous sound that had come from their mouths in a long time.

“I love you two,” Harry told them, as the morning sun started to rise into the sky, casting golden streaks of light across their bed. “I wouldn’t have made it through without you.”

“I love you both too,” Ron said.

“Yes,” Hermione added. “I love you both too.”

Their arms around each other held on tighter after this confession, but their eyes began to close. Hermione didn’t know what came next, and she knew Ron and Harry didn’t know either, but they had each other and they would do it together and that was the only thing that mattered.

That was Hermione’s last thought as she finally drifted off to sleep, surrounded by her two best friends and the sound of their heavy breathing in her ears.


End file.
